The ballerina wasn’t the only one praying during the Mozartiana Preghiera section on Friday the 13th. After what seemed her interminable absence due to a resentful tendon in the foot, we were gratified and relieved to see Devon Teuscher relevé to such a high level of grace in this Balanchine masterpiece. We’ll forgive if she did not have 100% confidence in that foot and was overthinking a little bit. It was a good start back, hopefully a comeback that will not be interrupted again. This was not the promised Theme and Variations that still lives in our dreams, but it was more than sufficient to keep us happy.
Joo Won Ahn also served this ballet and his ballerina well. His beats and turns were crisp and clean, and his eager elegance was just right for role. The steadiness of his partnering was especially important on this evening. He knows this ballerina well and was able to anticipate her needs perhaps even before she did. However, we wish we would see 90° arabesques from him again and more attention to stretching the leg lines in the air.
Jake Roxander’s dancing in the Gigue was superb in all respects. The tempo was sluggish and really did a disservice to the dancer by taking the urgency (and challenge) out of the steps. We’ve seen enough soloist work from this dancer. His choppers are ready for a big steak, and we are counting the hours until his Basilio debut this summer.
The four women in the Menuet were fine, but not more. The overly long tutus were fussy and, along with the dreadfully slow tempo, diminished the dancing.
Throughout the ballet the tempi almost made it sound like Tchaikovsky was mocking Mozart. It could have been the background music for a Geritol commercial. While the Preghiera speed was okay, the music never built during sequences where it needed to, such as in the horizontal bourrees. It was terribly lackluster, like it was being performed in a little room for ten people. Honestly, the audience usually cringes at how ABT nearly always constipates the music to Balanchine ballets.
The other complaint, an ongoing gripe, is the horrible black floor which ABT insists on importing into this theater that comes equipped with a beautiful floor cherished by some of the world’s greatest ballet dancers. The scuffed-up black floor under the black tutus and black tights worn by Roxander was unappealing and distracting. The dancers, all dressed in black, actually receded; when the curtain opened, the ballerina appeared to be standing six feet farther upstage than we are accustomed to seeing. Furthermore, this floor amplifies the shoe noise. How could ABT not recognize the disservice that this black floor does to its productions and dancers?
Jiří Kylián’s Nuages performed exquisitely by Hee Seo and Thomas Forster put us on Cloud Nine. Haglund doesn’t remember the ABT premiere of this pas de deux in 2014 by Diana Vishneva and Marcelo Gomes, but imagines that they melted the Marley in those days. Friday night Seo and Forster were beyond sublime.
Nuages is early-Kylián. We see here the fresh beginnings of his style: the introduction of the dancers with their backs to us, the sudden falls to the knees followed by soaring lifts, the deep bends in the ballerina’s back, the V-shaped arms, the blessed dancing of the same steps by men and women. Kylián uses the floor with Graham accents perhaps more than any other ballet choreographer. His work is the perfect fusion of ballet and modern dance. The lighting design, backdrop and of course the title all depict clouds, but Debussy’s music (Trois Nocturnes) brings to mind La Mer which came some years later and Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune that came a few years before Nuages. It was beautifully interpreted by the ABT Orchestra.
Seo, dancing on the occasion of her 40th birthday, could not have been more lovely. She retains the gorgeous lines and pliable back that have been her calling card for her entire career. Here she launched into the hazardous swoons and knee pirouettes with total confidence, and engaged the music and her partner with a potent reserve that conveyed more than any overtly emotional response could. Forster deserved her confidence. His partnering was magnificent in its strength and ease. His naturally low-key demeanor (although not forgetting how his Stepsister ran those pearls through her teeth a decade ago) was the perfect expressive match with Seo. Both dancers still have much to give.
The program concluded with Ratmansky’s Firebird which seems more a novelty take-off than an interpretation. The choreographer has remade the story into a Buster Keaton comedy where masses of dancers raced around, suddenly paused, raced some more. The cluttering clattering steps didn’t serve Stravinsky’s incredible music at all. It used the music, but it didn’t serve it on this night when it was so gloriously played by the ABT Orchestra.
There was no question that the Firebird came out like a house a’fire hurling lethal battements, nifty slides on pointe, and more nifty slides on pointe. Catherine Hurlin most likely did exactly what Ratmansky wanted at his preferred frenetic pace. She was powerful, aggressive, a veritable fighting Peregrin Falcon in red feathers. Sunmi Park was the long-suffering Maiden. Like Hurlin, she brought major theatrical vitality to her performance along with lovely executed steps. Daniel Camargo as Ivan was a very good sport in all of this. He looked great in the white Elvis suit and was able to pull off the comedy with style and without committing serious exaggeration. The highlight of Firebird, however, was Kaschei performed by Cory Stearns. How many times in this dancer’s career have we seen him in a role that requires him to move with such speed? We’ve spent years watching him mostly decelerate through allegro, and now Ratmansky has him moving like Quicksilver of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. He was the star of this show — the one who created the most interesting, off-the-wall, unpredictable character and actually used physicality to tell the story.
Our H.H. Pump Bump Award, a Moschino floating-cloud stiletto, is bestowed upon Hee Seo and Thomas Forster for their beautiful interpretation of Kylián’s Nuages, a pas de deux which is the perfect gift for these two ABT veterans.
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